Ubisoft Banking on Wii to Fend Off EA

French publisher Ubisoft, which has been fending off a takeover from Electronic Arts since 2004, sees an early adoption of Nintendo's next-gen console as its best bet against the publishing giant.

Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft North America said last week in an interview with Reuters, "Our goal is not to sell to EA but to beat EA." Referring to a Wii launch with eight Ubisoft titles expected, Detoc went on to say in referring to Wii's unique controller, "The Wii is unlikely not to succeed. The curiosity factor is going to help [Nintendo] and it's an impulse buy for most people."

In 2004 EA snatched up 20% of Ubisoft's stock, signalling long speculated intention of acquiring the fourth largest publisher. While Ubisoft has remained independent, it is significantly smaller than EA with $688.6 million in revenue for 2005 compared to EA's nearly $3 billion.

Source: Next Generation